I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. Good morning, teacher. So I stepped out of my house this morning to come down here, and I was stopped in my tracks by this. Can you see it? The tree in my yard is covered in blossoms, and I thought to myself, it's not even New Year. I grew up in California, but I'm still not quite used to the miraculous spring that comes before the New Year. And when I walked down here, the Ino Diana said to me, you're not going to twirl the flower, are you? And I said, no, I'm not going to do that.

[01:04]

I wanted to begin this morning with the beginning verse of the Dhammapada, which is translated as the path of light or the path of truth. And these poems are some of the earliest attributed to the Buddha, and they were compiled around the third century before the Christian era. What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow. Our life is a creation of our mind. If a man or a woman speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows them as the wheel of the cart follows the beast that draws the cart. What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday,

[02:11]

and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow. Our life is a creation of our mind. If a man or a woman speaks or acts with a pure mind, joy follows them as their own shadow. He insulted me. They hurt me. She defeated me. He robbed me. Those who think such thoughts will not be free from hate. She insulted me. He hurt me. They defeated me. He robbed me. Those who think not such thoughts will be free from hate, for hate is not conquered by hate. Hate is conquered by love. This is the eternal law. Many do not know that we are here in this world to live in harmony.

[03:17]

Those who know this do not fight against each other. So a few days ago, we began our annual New Year's retreat here at Green Gulch, and about twenty men and women came here to live together and to eat their meals together and to talk together about themselves and their longings and about the teachings of the Buddha. And I would say that all in all, it's going wonderfully well. We have managed for many days on end to live in peace and harmony with each other. There's a term in Buddhist teaching for living in harmony, which is called ango, meaning peaceful dwelling. And that's what I want to talk about this morning, about peaceful dwelling.

[04:23]

It seems to me that human children are not born automatically, consistently or reliably harmonizing themselves with one another. Some kids are more aggressive and some are more social, but either way, it seems to take the entirety of their lives to learn how to live in peace with their neighbors. And it seems to be a long process of education, of discipline and of compassion. But most importantly, it's a lifelong vow. You have to want to. That's the most important thing, that you want to. And that always comes first. We use words such as aspiration, intention, commitment, to indicate that we have taken such a vow within our own hearts

[05:30]

to live at peace with one another. And I imagine, I believe that all of you here have taken such a vow in your own hearts and that when you come to a place like this or when you go to church or to a mosque or a temple or another Dharma center, that you're going there to find out how to live your vows, how to live in harmony not only for your own benefit but for the benefit of this deeply troubled world. And it was the same heavy question that the Buddha carried with him as he left his beloved home in search for an end to human sorrow. I'm right now in the middle of a novel that a couple of friends recommended, so once more than one person suggests a book,

[06:32]

I usually think it's time to read the book. So this one is called The Life of Pi by Jan Martel. And so far I've only read enough to know that the young teenage boy, Indian boy in the story, has taken on himself wholeheartedly all of the core spiritual practices of his native Indian tradition. For the Christians, he has become baptized. And for the Hindus, he makes offerings of flowers and incense at the temple. And for the Muslims, he has a small prayer rug that he opens five times a day. And as he says, all of this as a means to express his innermost love. In the Buddhist tradition, we express our love through the methods of the young prince, Siddhartha, who was an accomplished yogi and a rigorous ascetic

[07:38]

and who mastered various trances of infinite delight. Unfortunately for those of us who aspire to a blissful outcome for our own spiritual enterprises, the prince reported that on exiting these trances, this is not the way. At the end of many years of what he now saw as fruitless and transient endeavor, he simply sat himself down under a tree, a flowering tree perhaps, and for seven days, he carefully watched the workings of his own mind. And as a result, to this very day, we Buddhists watch our minds as a means and as an expression of our innermost love. If you've ever tried to watch your mind at work,

[08:46]

you already know that it's not so easy to do. In fact, in making such an effort over time, you may begin to suspect that what's going on up here is actually somewhat mad. And if you have discovered that your mind is somewhat mad, unreliable, irrational, then according to the Buddha, you're on the right track. It's not so hard for us to see this basic madness in young children or in the very, very old because they have lost the ability or never got it in the first place to behave otherwise. One minute they're laughing and the next minute they're crying or they're happy or they're sad, they're irrational, hard to feed. And like my grandmother and my preteen daughter,

[09:46]

every once in a while, without any explanation, they are hell-bent on running away. And we so-called normal adults are not really so different. It's just that we're better channelized for appropriate behavior. And this is what the Buddha saw inside of himself as well. These endlessly repeating patterns of delusionary vision followed by strategies and impulses for their gratification. And being a prince of a warrior clan, his delusions appeared as armies of orcs and balrocks. And when those failed to move him, they transformed themselves into dancing girls and harem boys with names like Lust, Diversion, and Delight.

[10:49]

But even then, the Buddha remained seated and still. In the final round on the eve of his enlightenment, the Buddha was faced by Mara, the evil one himself, the prince of illusion. And he threatened the Buddha with extinction if he persisted in defying the show. The Buddha said to Mara, I know who you are, deceiver. And Mara replied with confidence, Oh, no, you don't. But the Buddha with equal confidence responded, Oh, yes, I do. You are myself. And with that knowledge, Mara vanished, leaving the young man sitting at peace in the forest under the banyan tree. This pattern of our delusional thinking begins with what's called the fundamental affliction of ignorance.

[11:58]

Ignorance is basically the fogging or the clouding of our good, clear vision. It's the appearance of Mara. And what we fail to see through these clouds of illusion is really very simple. We fail to see our common humanity, and we fail to act with common sense for the common good, for the benefit of all living things. And in place of that clear vision, what we see or what we believe we see are the varieties of shapes and forms that we call the other. It's almost like science fiction, the other. And we've given these shapes and forms a multitude of names. Some of them are beloved, and others are heinous.

[13:01]

And toward the beloved, we step forward. And from the heinous, we recoil. But either way, the passions are ignited, and they are expended in disharmonious behavior. The consequence of our clouded vision is notorious. It's written daily in the newspapers of the world. And we all have our own stories. She insulted me. He beat me. They robbed me. They defeated me. Those who think such thoughts will not be free from hate. As the Buddha watched his mind, our very mind, with great forbearance, day after day, he learned how this pattern of liking and disliking,

[14:02]

of picking and choosing, simply spun him around like a roulette wheel in a cheesy gaming parlor, round and round and round without ceasing, without cessation, and without relief. And he called this spinning samsara, which means literally endless circling. My daughter uses this gesture when she doesn't like something that I've said to her. Mom. So this is the bad news. This is the diagnosis that we've been given concerning this affliction, the fundamental affliction of our ignorance. And much of our training and our education from birth on just simply reinforces the potent delusion as truth.

[15:04]

The first truth that we are taught is the truth of me. Me and mine as righteously separate from each and every one of you. And based on this truth, it is no accident that we live in a society where my thoughts are protected, the privacy of my thoughts and the sanctity of my property against you, as every schoolboy knows. I've been reading another fascinating book. I have a stack of them, a stack of videos on one side and a stack of books on the other, called Empty Words by Jay Garfield, who's a very readable and a very likable professor of philosophy at Smith College and also a student of Tibetan Buddhism. And if you're interested in the major philosophical schools of the Mahayana,

[16:10]

the Madhyamaka and Yogacara, he's the man to read. Very easy to follow, very difficult stuff. And at the same time, and in this book, Empty Words, he appears as a Buddhist practitioner with a loving, and a loving exponent of compassionate political theory. He writes an essay called Human Rights and Compassion, in which he makes a very thought-provoking case against the elements of a civilization such as ours, where the moral landscape is defined by rights and duties of the individual. And he opposes such a civilization to another, which exists perhaps only in our imaginations, where the cultivation of compassion is the most basic moral and civil task,

[17:12]

and in which rights are grounded not in individual autonomy, but in the cultivation of the collective responsibility of all of us for each other. And such a political theory tastes, to me anyway, like Buddha's teaching, and not like the truth of me. The second of the delusional truths is the truth of you, that you and yours are potential opportunities for me, that if I can't actually have you and all that you have, at least I can go to the mall with pocketfuls of cash, that the other has been transformed into commodity. These commodities are guaranteed to last, they will bring pleasure,

[18:14]

and they will quench the incessant groaning of my hyperactive desires. The third truth is the truth of acquiring itself, that acquiring, shopping, getting, winning, holding, owning, will make me happy. And the fourth truth is that all of the above is true. In whatever way, no matter how subtle you believe in this game, then you are moved and turned by these truths. Spin, wash, and dry. These four mistaken truths are called the upside-down or inverted views, and it was understood by the Buddha that correcting these misunderstandings,

[19:21]

these misperceptions, is the true path to human happiness. Instead of the truth of me, of self-concern, he taught the truth of caring about you, of living for the benefit of others, in the Bodhisattva vow. And instead of the truth of you, he taught the truth of renunciation of all attachments, in other words, of keeping our hands to ourselves, and of appreciating all that comes to us as a gift or as an offering. Each sound, each sight, taste, touch, object of mind, or as Mr. Thoreau said, if you will sit quietly by the side of the pond, all the creatures of the forest will come and greet you one by one.

[20:22]

And instead of the truth of acquiring, he taught the truth of giving, not only the giving of material possession, but of instruction, of patience, of protection, of encouragement, and of unconditional love. And finally, instead of the truth of what I believe is true, he taught that holding views is the greatest source of our human suffering, and it's the foundation for fundamentalism of all various stripes. I think probably you've already heard by now the story of the difference between heaven and hell. It's been told many times up at this seat, but I think I'll tell it again. In heaven there's a, excuse me, in hell there's a banquet table that's covered with delicious food, and all of the guests are very hungry,

[21:31]

and then they are handed extremely long forks with which to eat. So they can't get the food into their mouths. That's hell. In heaven it's exactly the same scene, except that all of the people are using the long forks to feed one another across the table, so that no one goes hungry. So having dwelt a bit on the bad news and the diagnosis of this mental affliction, I want to spend the rest of this talk talking about the good news, which is that there is medicine, and there is great hope for cure. For thousands of years, thousands of people have found relief from their own suffering. Mental affliction through the methods and guidance of the fine teacher called Shakyamuni Buddha.

[22:34]

And what he prescribed is really very simple, but as one of his disciples, Suzuki Roshi, said, it is quite simple, but it's not so easy. It's not so easy to be so simple. To take things at face value, to hold no views, and to love everyone without exception. As for method, Zen Master Dogen of Japan spoke of simply dropping body and mind. And Bodhidharma, the first Zen ancestor in China, simply sat in a cave for nine years facing a wall. And when his disciple, Huika, came to him asking for help with his own troublesome mind, Bodhidharma said to him,

[23:37]

bring me your mind, and I will pacify it for you. So Huika went away for a while. We don't really know how long. It probably was a number of years. And when he returned, he said to Bodhidharma, I can't find my mind. Bodhidharma said, There, I've pacified it for you. Each of these stories is a clue to the practice that we humans need to undertake in order to free ourselves from the power of our imaginations. How each of us must seek and find the answers to the questions which burn and crackle within us at those quiet hours deep into the night. And it's highly recommended in the Buddhist tradition

[24:41]

that you find some help along the way. As any of us here at Green Gulch can tell you, we wouldn't be able to do this practice without each other, without the love and support of one another. And this is Ango, peaceful dwelling. And what you'll get if you come here, even for a little while, is pretty much what Huika got. Some pretty good food, shelter from the rain, and you'll get an opportunity to sit by the pond and watch the workings of your own mind. Until, maybe, at some point, you'll sit in awe as you watch the limitations, the convictions, and the opinions so long held slip quietly to the floor. Last night I had the great privilege

[25:45]

to watch my mind at the Cirque du Soleil. And it flipped and it flopped and it soared. And at the end of the performance, all of us leapt to our feet, clapping wildly in appreciation for these young people. And while I was clapping, I thought to myself, isn't this a better way to live than blowing one another up? But here were these young humans playing together under the big top. They had trained, obviously, for a long time. Their bodies were so intelligent and beautiful. And they had approached their fears over and over again, together. And they protected each other. They stood under each other, so in case they might fall, they'd be safe. And it reminded me of another team I watched, teamwork,

[26:48]

in a film called The Band of Brothers, about the Second World War, in which a group of young men trained together, lived together, supported one another, protected each other. But the difference is just so obvious. In one case, we are dazzled with delight, and in the other, we are crippled for life by the horror. What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow. Our life is a creation of our mind. If a man or a woman speaks or acts with a pure mind, joy follows them as their own shadow. He insulted me. They hurt me. She defeated me. He robbed me. Those who think such thoughts will not be free from hate.

[27:51]

She insulted me. He hurt me. They defeated me. He robbed me. Those who think not such thoughts will be free from hate, for hate is not conquered by hate. Hate is conquered by love. This is the eternal law. Many do not know that we are here in this world to live in harmony. Those who know this do not fight against each other. So I wish all of you the blessings of our harmonious New Year for yourselves and your families, and I wish that this New Year and this new world may ever now and then be brightened by a cloudless sky. Thank you very much.

[28:45]

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